The terrible diagnosis. The economic calamity. The trauma you experienced as a young person. The betrayal. The broken heart.
Are the Stoics really saying you should love that? Is that what it means to “amor fati”—to love your fate? You have to love that cancer is ravaging your body? You have to love your painful childhood? You have to love that thousands of people just lost their job…and you alongside them?
No, that’s not quite it. Perhaps a true sage could. Perhaps Epictetus could shrug his shoulders and smile through those thirty years of slavery, as Marcus Aurelius apparently did through plagues and floods and funerals. But that’s a lot to ask of us mere mortals.
The part to love is not the tragedy. The part to love is yourself—yourself in and after the tragedy. Not only are you going to square up and meet this (because what choice do you have?), but you’re going to become better for it. That’s a choice you have—one that not everyone makes.
What you are loving is what Admiral James Stockdale said he came to love about his seven and half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam at the Hanoi Hilton, the part that he would not, in retrospect, have traded away. His time in bondage offered a chance at greatness, a chance at courage, a chance at justice, a chance at strength, a chance at wisdom—a chance to test the ideas of the Stoics, as he said, in the laboratory of human behavior.
This thing, whatever you’re dealing with, is that chance.
It’s not fair, it’s not fun, but it is that chance. If there is anything to love, love that.
P.S. Stoicism was borne out of the idea that life will always challenge us. It will change our plans, upend our expectations, and force us to choose how we adapt.
The Stoics knew this, and encouraged us to rise to meet life’s challenges. To fortify our resilience. To always do the right thing. To understand what we can control and what we cannot. To love the hand fate deals us. To not run away from the call to serve or help others. To be part of the important moments in history. To fight to be the person philosophy wants us to be.
A challenge coin is a way to carry that standard with you. Something to touch in a hard moment. A reminder of what you’ve come through—and what you’re still reaching for.
Our 10-Medallion Bundle brings together all 10 of our Stoic challenge coins, including the Amor Fati coin, with a premium display case. So they’re close at hand when you need them, and on display when you don’t. It’s the complete set at a significant discount.
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